Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Ribery and Benzema Tried For Paying For s*x With an Under-Age Prostitute.

French
footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema are to go on trial in Paris
on charges of paying for s*x with an under-age prostitute.

Under
French law, paid s*x with someone under the age of 18 is regarded as s*x
with a minor- punishable by three years in prison and €45,000 fine.

Algerian-born
Ms Zahia Dehar had told investigators that neither footballer had known
her real age at the time of their affairs- because she had lied to
them.

Ms Zahia Dehar.

But soliciting for s*x from a prostitute under 18 in France is a crime even albeit the 15 years legal age of consenting s*x.

The
state prosecutor had asked for the case to be dropped in November 2009,
but the investigating judge said Ms Dehar looked so young that they
must have known.

The affair which came to fore early 2010 (before
the World Cup in South Africa) also involved six other people. Some of
them accused of ‘aggravated pimping.’

Ribery and Benzema were
arrested as part of an investigation into a Paris prostitution ring. Mr
Ribery has since admitted of having s*x with Ms Dehar in Munich in 2009,
when she was 18. Benzema denies there was any encounter, which Ms Dehar
countered by saying he paid her for s*x in 2008 when she was only 16.

For
Mr. Ribery’s lawyer Carlo-Alberto Brusa, for a girl to have traveled
across border for paid s*x means she exactly knew what she was up to. He
will request for the case to be thrown out on Tuesday.

Ms Dehar
went on to become a fashion designer for Karl Lagerfeld’s muse and
protégée, launching her own luxury and lingerie line following the
launch of the high-profile investigation.

Franck Ribery is a
Bayern Munich midfielder, married to his childhood sweetheart and also
an observant convert to Islam. Karim Benzema is a Real Madrid forward.